“We should go,” Wes breathes, but I shake my head at him. I wait a beat, then peer into the window again. McGregor is lying on the bed with his feet planted on the floor. He has one hand pressed to his eyes, and the other is clenched in the red blanket beneath him. He looks completely crushed; I wouldn’t be surprised if he were crying.
I drop down and crawl back over to Wes. He gives me an exasperated look, and then swings his body onto the fire escape stairs. I follow him, but I can’t get the image of McGregor out of my mind. Whomever he was visiting at Bellevue left him devastated.
If it was my grandfather, then that means he’s somehow involved in this rift in time. And that means his connection to the Montauk Project runs deeper than I ever imagined.
CHAPTER 8
You know what the next step is, don’t you?”
I sigh. “We have to go to Bellevue and talk to my grandfather.” I must sound as defeated as I feel, because Wes turns to face me. I ignore him and stare out at the Statue of Liberty. The water around it is choppy and the waves peak on crests of white foam.
“I’m not sure I’m ready.”
Battery Park is practically deserted at nine in the morning on a Wednesday, though I spot the occasional tourist wearing a green foam Statue of Liberty crown. We are by the water, right where the ferryboats pull into the harbor. I find something soothing about the way the water splashes against the dock beneath us. Maybe it just reminds me of Montauk, of home.
Wes leans on the railing next to me, deceptively casual. “I think you are ready. I—” He stops.
“What is it?”
His mouth twists. “I think it’s part of why you wanted to come to this time period with me. So that you could find him.”
I straighten. “No! It’s not, I swear. I came for you.”
“I believe you, Lydia. But I also know you, and you’re not one to run away from the things that scare you. Maybe, deep down, you were hoping something like this would happen so it would force you to face your grandfather’s disappearance.”
I turn away from him and run my fingers violently through my hair. Some of the pins holding it in place scatter, making tiny pings as they hit the pavement.
Since when did Wes become a shrink?
But as much as I hate to admit it, I have been running away from the consequences of what happened in 1944, and it’s not like me. I do want to at least see my grandfather. I need to face the reality of this new time line I helped create.
And besides, I miss him.
“You’re right.” I look back at Wes. “Of course you are. I want to see him again. But I also want to help you get out, Wes. That is why I came.”
He faces away from me, staring out into the park. There’s a group of break-dancers setting up not far from us. A teenager drops his boom box on the concrete while another one flips over onto his hand, his legs at right angles in the air above his body. Wes seems absorbed in the scene, and I wonder if he even heard me. Finally he says, “We can’t abandon this mission. We have to keep looking into McGregor so I have information to bring to General Walker when this is all over.”
I don’t say what I’m thinking—that if we can get him out of the Project, then he’ll never have to be debriefed about what happened here. But I understand why he’s hesitant, why he feels the need to cover all of his bases in case we don’t succeed.
“I’ll help you however I can,” I say to him. “If that means we need to complete this mission, then I’m here for you. But—”
Before I can finish, he looks over at me. “Then it looks like we have to go talk to your grandfather. You can see him again, and we can find out the connection between him and McGregor.”
I nod, but then bury my face in my hands. “You’re right. I just wish I didn’t have to dump the Montauk Project on my grandfather’s doorstep again. I wanted to keep him out of it this time.”
“I think he’s already in it.” Wes sounds grim. “How soon does he disappear?”
I lower my hands, gripping the metal railing until it stings my palms. “On August fourteenth. In five days.”
“The same amount of time Walker gave us to complete our mission.”
“And now my grandfather is probably connected to an election that is somehow vital to the Montauk Project. That’s a lot of coincidences.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Wes says. “Not anymore.”
We take the subway to 28th Street. Bellevue is almost all the way to the East River and we have to walk a few blocks before we reach it. The streets are teeming with people, and I concentrate on the back of Wes’s striped shirt as we navigate the busy sidewalks.
“Yo!” The shout pierces through the noise of the traffic and I lift my head. But it’s crowded out here, and I can’t see who yelled.
“Yo, man!”
It sounds even closer this time. Across the street an African-American boy is waving at . . . us?
“Hey! I see you, man!” He hops into the street, mindless of the oncoming traffic. A car blasts its horn and I see the driver throw up his hands. The boy is getting closer, and I stop walking. He looks about our age, and he’s wearing red shorts and a white T-shirt that’s covered in bright splashes of paint. Wes stops too, staring out into the street.
“Wait up!”
There’s a dark-haired girl standing on the sidewalk watching us. Suddenly she lifts her head and her whole body tenses.
“Yo, We—” But the boy is cut off by the girl’s shrill voice.
“Tag!”
